Up Close & (More) Personal

By
Brad Horvath
|
The Lost BoysNovember 14, 2011 at 4:11PM

I received a few nice messages since my first blog post, which has motivated me to begin writing this (my second) one earlier than I expected. One “reader” already suggested that I make them (my posts) “more personal”, which made me think more about their purpose and my intention for writing them. PERSONALLY, I think it is too early to predict how personal my contributions will become, although it is true that I have an aversion to writing about myself. I mean, who really cares what I did on the weekend or what my favourite (that’s “favorite” to some of you!) short and feature films are?

I received a few nice messages since my first blog post, which has motivated me to begin writing this (my second) one earlier than I expected. One “reader” already suggested that I make them (my posts) “more personal”, which made me think more about their purpose and my intention for writing them. PERSONALLY, I think it is too early to predict how personal my contributions will become, although it is true that I have an aversion to writing about myself. I mean, who really cares what I did on the weekend or what my favourite (that’s “favorite” to some of you!) short and feature films are?

That said and to immediately contradict myself, last weekend I went to see the film Like Crazy (directed by Drake Doremus) for a second time (I first saw it almost a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival), where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Picture and Felicity Jones won the Special Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Actress). I can’t tell you how much I like this film without sounding like I have a personal investment in it (though it does personally resonate with me for reasons I may share on this blog another time), but if you like beautifully-acted, observational and intelligent stories about young love between believable characters, you will love this film. Go see it while it is in theatres, if you haven’t already (or, if you have and you like it as much as I do, go see it for a second time)! Here’s the trailer:

On the subject of my favourite short and feature films, I think I will dedicate an entire post in the coming weeks (along with some short film Academy Award nominee predictions, for those of you who are interested). In the meantime, if you have twenty minutes, $1.99, an iTunes account and you haven’t already seen this year’s Academy Award-winning live action short film – and one of my all-time favourite short films – God of Love (directed by Luke Matheny), you can download it on iTunes and watch it in advance of the upcoming short film short list for next year's Academy Awards (disclaimer: I acquired God of Love for Ouat Media, which distributes the film, along with this year's Academy Award-winning animated short film The Lost Thing, which you can also download on iTunes). Here’s the trailer:

You can also watch Luke and his friends at the National Film Society share some fun tips on how to win an Oscar here:

Finally, I would like to send a shout-out to the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. They just wrapped their 15th annual film festival and by all accounts, it was another successful showcase of contemporary Asian film. Here’s a picture of me with colleague Kristine Estorninos (to my right) and others at a discussion about the current state of Taiwanese cinema at the University of Toronto last week: